June 26, 2019--Aunt Tanna

I've been thinking this week about my Aunt Tanna, my mother's second oldest sister who became our extended family's matriarch after my grandmother died.

This meant that all ritual occasions such as Passover and Rosh Hashanah dinners were under her auspices and occurred around her always-ladened dining room table. 

In my life I do not recall any warmer times.

Aunt Tanna was also the even-more-extended family's guardian angel. 

My earliest childhood memories were of distant cousins, who had survived Nazi concentration camps, who she somehow, at the end of the war, managed to bring to the safety of America. That "safety of America" was the security and love she provided to those who had literally been through Hell.

When they were liberated those emaciated skeletons were placed in DP camps, often tent camps, displaced persons camps, which were much less than ideal facilities, where they needed to wait, often for more than a year, before there was a place of refuge to which to send them. 

Much of Europe was in ruins and there were few places to locate freed prisoners. The United States, which sustained no direct damage, was only reluctantly welcoming. 

In America there was a long tradition of official antisemitism and our State Department, which was charged with managing the quotas that severely restricted the number of those who could be admitted to the country as refugees, was notoriously known to be unfriendly to anything Jewish. 

For example, before World War II erupted the Secretary of State ordered that ships packed with asylum seekers not be permitted to disembark them. The ships and their passengers were turned back and as a consequence many thousands were then sent to concentration camps where they were slaughtered by the Nazis. 

Aunt Tanna somehow found ways to locate scattered family members and one-by-one, occasionally in small family groups when more than one cousin miraculously survived, she managed to bring them to her apartment in Brooklyn where she arranged places for them to sleep, frequently for months, frequently three to a bed, while she searched for more permanent places for them to live and jobs so they could support themselves.

They spoke no English and I no Yiddish, the lingua franca, and so we communicated mainly though shrugs and gestures. As might be imagined I was especially drawn to the occasional young cousin survivors, who my father said, looked like "little old men." What they had been through, I came to understand, had literally left its mark on them.

And of course I could not take my eyes off the blue numbers they all had tattooed on their forearms.

I have been thinking about this recently because Portland Maine continues to be in the news as it struggles to welcome a few hundred Congolese refugees who have been granted asylum in America. There was another article in the New York Times Monday about how welcoming Portland is attempting to be. And how Portland and the State of Maine continue to be the only places in the U.S. where public money in combination with privately raised funds are being used to help defray the cost of their relocation and transition.

This, as I have written, has unleashed a storm of protest from some Mainers who feel that while citizens are struggling we should not be using taxpayer money to defray the costs associated with admitting refugees. That it is better to require that family members "sponsor" anyone seeking to live in America. The Aunt Tanna approach.

This seems to me to be worth considering.

April 9, 2018--Passover With Donald Trump

Traditionally, at the Passover seder a fifth cup of ceremonial wine is left untouched at an empty place at the table in honor of the prophet Elijah, who, according to tradition, will arrive one day to herald the coming of the Messiah.

Last year and this, at Pesach, that place, apocryphally, was occupied by Donald Trump. 

Likewise he was a malignant spirit present at last week's Easter dinners and before that at Christmas gatherings and family Thanksgivings.

In this regard, at least, Trump was ecumenical. Spoiling these family occasions equally without regard to ethnicity, national origin, or religious affiliation. He disrupted everyone and everything.

Family members don't always get along. OK, family members almost never get along. But a lot gets papered over for the sake of peace. 

We all have our "crazy" Uncle Harrys with their roving hands, Republican families include at least a grumpy Democrat or two and the families of progressives usually have a few grouchy conservatives. 

Customarily, after just one glass of wine, though by tacit agreement we agree not to discuss Sandra's divorce, Eli's bankruptcy, Mary's hysterectomy, Jack's children's problems with drugs, or Irene's facelift these come up but are quickly squelched by whomever serves as the family matriarch or patriarch.

When gathered around the dining room table, things can get heated. OK, they always do, but there has been a layer of affection (if not love), civility, and respect that prevents things from spinning out of control. 

At least there used to be.

Family protocols were such that cousins and in-laws were constrained from becoming so furious with each other that harsh words evolved to accusations and epithets, which in turn would lead to threats or fist fights. In the past no one got so riled up that they threatened to never again make the trek to Long Island or New Jersey for Passover or Easter. For the sake of familyness, unspoken limits were agreed upon and mostly obeyed.

But friend after friend reported this year that things have gotten to be so nasty and personal that they plan to absent themselves from future family gatherings as long as Donald Trump is president and occupies the Elijah chair. 

Things have descended to that point. He has so profoundly contributed to coarsening the environment that they see no hope of retaining any semblance of family ties as long as he postures and swaggers in our national midst. 

I have been hearing stories about how previously close brothers-in-law, who agreed about almost everything and when they did differ had enough respect for each other that they heard each other out and managed to find common ground, or agreed amicably to agree to disagree, are sadly no longer talking. 

I head from one of the brothers-in-law that he will no longer have anything to do with his sister's husband because he called him a fascist. The brother-in-law who shared this with me said that though he did not support Trump and worries about where he is leading the country, he wanted to talk about why Trump had been successful in order to come up with strategies to resist him and his rule and defeat him during the midterm elections in November. 

But now, simply for taking Trump seriously, he was accused of "normalizing" him and thereby lending him support. Thus, he was accused of being an enabler for America's Mussolini. 

He said to me, "Now when I send him a happy birthday email he doesn't even say 'thank you.'"

And I heard from a cousin who is sensing that his brother-in-law may be a Trump enthusiast and, if so, does not want to have anything further to do with him. He is thus considering preemptively cutting off the relationship. Doing so, again, not because he knows but because he suspects his brother-in-law likely voted for Trump.

For my part, from now on I'll be celebrating various holidays by going to the movies and having dinner in Chinatown.

Elijah's Seat

July 4, 2106--A Year of Mourning

I am by nature skeptical. Especially about things that involve ritual or belief. I am more comfortable with evidence-based reality. Or, at least, my version of what constitutes "evidence" and "reality."

And so when my mother died a year ago Friday, at the time a close friend said it will take a full year of mourning to reach "closure" and for me to be able to fully "move on."

From what she said and how she said it it should be obvious that my friend is a therapist, a good one, but on occasion speaks psychobabble-tinctured English.

"And," she added, "though I know you are not a practicing Jew, in your tradition, an entire year is devoted to mourning. The rabbis," she winked, "determined that and as you know--as a believer or not--they could at times be wise in the ways of the world and the heart."

I chose just then to avoid a theological discussion, thanked her for her views but, as I said, I am skeptical about these kinds of matters.

As it turned out, she--and perhaps the rabbis--had it right.

Until this year I was naively oblivious to the annual procession of holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries. Passover, for example, is a holiday that since early adulthood I did not practice. But this year, knowing that if my mother were still alive, she would have been observing it at the Passover seder at Forrest Trace where she lived the last 20 years of her life, I wanted to be there with her, reconnecting to the ancient prayers, chants, and songs. And of course the matzoh, three cups of wine, and the rest of the traditional meal.

On the first night of pesach this year, I surprised myself by unconsciously intoning the Four Questions, the Fir Kashes, as I used to do when I was the youngest male at the extended-family seder. Those words, likely mispronounced, taught to me by my mother when I was six, brought more tears than I was expecting even before I got to the second question.

Mah nishtanah, ha-laylah ha-zeh,mi-col ha-leylot 

Why is this night different than all others?

Theology aside, the answer this past year was that that night was different because it was the first one for me that did not include the living presence of my mother. And it came with the realization that it never will again.

Mah nishtanah: "Why," indeed.

Then this past Saturday, in the Pemaquid lighthouse keepers' cemetery, just up the road from us, Rona and I participated in digging a grave for our great friend, Boyce Martin's ashes.

When his wife, our beloved friend, Anne Ogden told us, "You do not have to participate. You can decline . . ." I cut in to say, "If it's still all right with you, we want to help."

"In the Jewish tradition . . ." I said and then interrupted myself, a bit confused, when I realized that after a year of my mother no longer being with us, more than ever, I find myself unexpectedly referring to things Jewish.

Still I persisted, "In the Jewish tradition there is the mitzvah system. A hierarchy of good deeds or mitzvahs, that Jews are expected to perform. For example, at a Jewish burial, family and friends are invited to help fill the grave. Doing that is a mitzvah of the highest order because it is one that the 'beneficiary,' having passed away, is unable to thank you for."

"I like that," Anne said--she has a strong spiritual and ecumenical core--"So in that case do that mitzvah for Boyce."

My mother would have agreed.

And so we did. Now I am the one feeling blessed.

Anne Ogden

Boyce Martin

July 18, 2014--Best of Behind: The House that Ruth Built

With the baseball all-star game behind us and regular season play about to resume, here is something I wrote in September 22, 2008 that appears to be a baseball story but in reality is about family--

It was early April and the family was gathered at Aunt Tanna's and Uncle Eli’s apartment. After my grandparents died it had fallen to Eli to conduct Passover services and to Tanna, with the help of her sisters, to prepare and serve the sumptuous dinner.

As is traditional, Eli as the host, early in the reading of the Haggadah, set aside a napkin-wrapped portion of matzos, which would serve as the Afikomon. Since Jews no longer participated in sacrificing and serving the Pascal Lamb during Passover, this matzos symbolized that lamb and was to be the last taste of the evening—a sort of desert that was shared by all after the host broke it into enough pieces to serve everyone. Happily, to those of us still too young to understand or enjoy the magic of such symbolism, Aunt Tanna, and especially Aunt Gussie managed to bake delectable treats in spite of the Passover prohibitions against using normal forms of flour or leavening. It was well worth enduring what seemed an endless service and meal to get to Gussie's coconut macaroons and matzos-flour angel cake.

Though I did not at the time appreciate the meaning of the Afikomon, I did love the custom that required the youngest children (boys really) to “steal” and hide it from Uncle Eli. Which we always managed to do with his obvious complicity—he made an art form of looking the other way so that we could snatch and run off with it and hide it behind a sofa cushion in the adjoining living room. When it came time to need it to conclude the ceremonies, Eli would make a broad theatrical effort to search for it, of course--with great sighing and frustration--always failing to find it. Even though the previous year and the year before that my cousin Chuck, his son, and I hid it in the very same place. Obviously stealing and hiding things were not among our limited number of talents.

So when Uncle Eli would give up in faux-frustration, with much squealing of delight we would retrieve the Afikomon from the sofa and hand it over to him so he could do his symbolic thing and we, the best part, would get our reward. The year, before we--actually Chuck--asked for two pairs of boxing glove which through the year he used almost every weekend to pummel me, his pathetic sparring partner, as he “trained” to become the last in a long line of Jewish boxing champions. And though I was quite a good punching bag for him, he was better at schoolwork than in our improvised ring and went on to become a successful personal-injury lawyer. What else was appropriate for an ex-boxer?

But this year we planned in advance to ask Eli to take us to Yankee Stadium, to the House that Ruth Built.

Back then, with the Dodgers ensconced and beloved in Brooklyn where we lived, with Chuck, and me under his influence, unlikely and passionate Yankee fans—you could get killed on any Flatbush street corner for showing even mild interest in the hated Yankees—a secret trip up to the Bronx to attend a game in person was a transgressive treat. Eli, who liked the idea that in their risky enthusiasm for the Yankees his son and nephew showed signs of intrepidness—he himself had as a boy escaped from Tsarist Russia and made his way on his own to America—was happy to accede to our request, receive the Afikomon, and bring the long Passover evening to conclusion—it was getting late, the family was showing sign of restlessness, and some had to make the long trek back to Long Island.

A week later, Uncle Eli told us that through a friend he had gotten box seats for the three of us for June 13th. Though my memory is beginning to fail me I will always remember that date vividly because, as good fortune would have it, June 13, 1948 turned out to be the day the Yankees retired Babe Ruth’s uniform number. Everyone knew that the Babe was suffering from throat and neck cancer and did not have long to live, and so they wanted to honor him before he was unable to be there in person to bask in the cheers and love of the more than 100,000 of his fans who packed that great iconic ballpark.

There is grainy newsreel film of the event that helps jog my recollection-- 

A stooped and fragile Babe, desiccated to half his bulky size, wearing his uniform with the familiar number 3 emblazoned on his back, no longer the physical manifestation of the Sultan of Swat he had been during his playing years, on that sultry afternoon, he shuffled haltingly to home plate where he stood, leaning heavily on his bat as if it were a crutch rather than the instrument of divine power it had been, to take in the adoration of his fans. 

And though Chuck, still harbored dreams of stepping into the boxing ring in this very Yankee Stadium, where not that many years before Joe Lewis avenged himself, and all of America, by defeating in slightly more than two minutes of the first round, the great Aryan hope, Max Schmeling, through my own tears I saw Chuck’s.

So many years later, with Chuck prematurely off with the Babe, now in an even-better, loftier box seat, last night my tears flowed again when the Bambino’s 92 year-old daughter Julia threw out the first ball at the last game that will ever be played in the house her father built, soon after that to be torn down and replaced by a new, antiseptic Yankee Stadium. 

More symbolism.

July 12, 2013--Matzo Wars

Been to Yuma, Arizona? Not much there but the heat. And the matzo-makers of one group of ultra-orthodox Hasidim from Borough Park, Brooklyn.

What brings them to this desolate piece of desert just five miles north of the Mexican border? Access to a few acres of a gentile's wheat farm where they are growing the most-kosher-for-Passover grain that will be used to make the most-kosher matzo for next spring's Passover celebration.

The Hasids are not leaving it to Christian Tim Dunn to grow the wheat for their matzo. Rather, two rabbis from their Satmar sect are spending the next seven weeks in Yuma overseeing every aspect of the cultivation and harvesting so that they can assure their fellow worshipers back in Brooklyn that the matzo they bake next April will not contain even one tiny speck of traif or leavening.

And, equally important, they will be able to tell their Hasidim rivals, other Satmars, those who live and grow their wheat in Kiryas Joel in Orange County, New York, that their not theirs is the holiest of matzo. This counts as a big deal among the Satmar Hasidim.

Each sect is led by one of two rabbi brothers and this of course complexifies things. Sibling rivalry between brother Hasids is of, well, biblical proportions. It is one thing to compete for parents' attention, it's another when God Himself is the ultimate dispenser of favor.

So out in a trailer beside the sweltering field reside lesser rabbis who have been sent there to oversee every aspect of the wheat growing. For example, once the wheat matures, to the Satmar it cannot be allowed to become wet and thus run the danger of beginning to ferment. Thus the appeal of the dry desert air as opposed to the more temperate, rainier climate up in Kiryas Joel.

Quoted in the New York Times, Samuel Heilman, a professor of sociology at Queens College, whose research is about the ethnography of Jewish orthodox groups, knows the rivalrous Satmars well--"One is always looking to be more authoritative than the other and one of the ways they're making this happen is over matzo--our matzo is more kosher than yours, we're more scrupulous and careful over matzo baking than you are."

And, by implication, we're better Jews than you.

The rabbis in Yuma obsess more about keeping the maturing wheat dry than anything else, including insisting that workers not take any water bottles into the sweltering 108-degree fields. And when the farm equipment needs cleaning, the rabbis take charge of that too, blowing air into even the tiniest crevices to make sure than not one bit of dirt remains clinging to the tractors and cultivators.

None of this comes cheap--back in Borough Park, the street price of a one-pound box of Satmar-Yuma matzo is $25. In the supermarket, a one-pound box of Striet's goes for $5.99.